Obama Returns to 30-Year-Old Medicare, Social Security Lies

Oct 23, 2008

RUSH: Boy, there is a fight raging, ladies and gentlemen, between these pollsters out there. The gloves are off between the pollsters. ‘Polling guru John Zogby ripped an Associated Press survey showing the McCain-Obama battle down to a dead heat. ‘The AP poll is not only an outlier, it’s just preposterous!’ Zogby told the Herald last night. An ‘outlier’ is a term for a result on the margin that is often thrown out by statisticians. … But Zogby, who has Obama jumping ahead of McCain 52-42 percent in his own poll released yesterday–‘ it’s a little higher than that today, ‘–said the AP poll failed to properly count college-age kids.’ So Zogby upset with AP.

Meanwhile, ‘Democratic Rep. John Murtha leads retired Army Lt. Col. William Russell by a little more than 4 percentage points, within the Susquehanna Poll’s 4.9-point margin of error.’ For those of you in Murtha’s district in western Pennsylvania, his opponent Army Lt. Col. William Russell, he is a Republican who served in the Iraq war and he has been jumping on Murtha’s remarks about people in the district being racist and redneck, said he couldn’t disagree with Murtha more on this. This is the closest race in this district in two years. William Russell, for those of you in the district of Jack Murtha.

Now, this is a fascinating poll, this Liz Sidoti poll, because this AP poll that Zogby doesn’t like, it keeps getting longer and longer and longer. Last night over a 90-minute period the AP story doubled in word count. If you read deep into this AP story that has Obama up over McCain 48-47, statically a dead heat, you find that the intensity has increased among McCain supporters and decreased among Obama supporters in the last week in this AP poll. A month ago in the AP’s own poll, and they say this, Obama had more strong supporters than McCain did. Now the number of excited supporters is about even. The entire DC media is attacking the AP behind the scenes over this. Ron Fournier is the AP bureau chief, and he’s getting all kinds of grief. One of the comments that I saw in the Drive-Bys last night when he’s playing cell phone roulette, you know, meaning that he’s using cell phones. Fewer and fewer homes now have land lines and cell phone numbers are not really listed. So they’re just accusing AP of having a flawed technology here in the way that they’re going about conducting their survey.

‘Wells Fargo &amp; Co. Chairman Dick Kovacevich says he expects governments around the world to do whatever necessary to restore normal functioning of the global financial system. ‘There may be doubts how long (the recovery) will take, but it will get done and sooner than most people think,’ Kovacevich said in an address to the Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco Tuesday night. ‘Governments will do whatever it takes to stabilize the financial system.’ The banker anticipates the nation will emerge from recession early next year.’ Now, the Wells Fargo bank doesn’t have any involvement in the subprime mess, and if you’ll recall, the Wells Fargo CEO, when he was ordered into this meeting in Washington with Paulson, (paraphrasing) ‘We don’t want your bailout. We don’t want to have to sell part of our shares of our bank to you.’ But Paulson said, ‘You’re not leaving this room ’til you sign.’ It was right out of Vito Corleone, and he ended up signing. ‘We don’t need your money. We don’t want your money.’ A lot of small banks said the same thing.

Last week, ladies and gentlemen, October 17th, six days ago, I reminded you of a truism, and this was it.

RUSH ARCHIVE: I just saw something, and it’s about Obama today in Roanoke, Virginia. This tells me that he is definitely in trouble. He has pulled out a page from the 30-year-old Democrat playbook: ‘John McCain will cut Medicare.’ It won’t be long before we’re going to cut Social Security as well. And then we’re going to cut school lunches.

RUSH: All right, that’s what I said six days ago. Last night, Hannity &amp; Colmes, Governor Fast Eddie Rendell of Pennsylvania said this about Senator McCain.

RENDELL: If you’re a senior, John McCain’s economic advisors say they’re going to tax, $1.3 trillion is going to come out of Medicare and Medicaid. That means higher premiums; that means lower benefits. Why in the world would you vote for John McCain?

RUSH: That’s the same Fast Eddie, by the way, who begged Obama to get back to Pennsylvania for a couple rallies ’cause it’s close there. They are in trouble. What is this? They’re going to tax, $1.3 trillion is going to come out of Medicare and Medicaid? This is another one of these falsehoods that they’re telling about McCain but it’s aimed right at the seasoned citizens. Now, if all of these yutes that they have registered, all these young people, these college students, if they’re really, really, really, really, really going to show up and vote in big numbers for the first time ever this year, then why do you have to care what the old folks do? They’re out there as they always do trying to frighten the elderly. Here’s Robert Wexler, Larry King Live, Bob Wexler, by the way, Democrat, Maryland.

WEXLER: Senator McCain supports a privatization plan, which would play the stock market into Social Security, which is very frowned upon in Florida. And Senator Obama has a much more realistic, sober plan to improve Social Security’s financial standing. Senator Obama’s got a very strong case to make in Florida.

RUSH: I told you six days ago when they went after Medicare that Social Security would be next, a 30-year-old page from the Democrat playbook, and Wexler lied through his teeth. McCain has not put a privatization plan on the board to put Social Security in the stock market. He’s going back and he’s tying McCain to Bush on that. McCain has advanced no such plan, that I’m aware of. So once again they’re designed to scare elderly people, they’re going to cut your Medicaid, they’re going to take away your Social Security. You elderly people, let me give you the truth about Social Security and Obama. Obama says he’s gonna cut taxes for 95% of Americans. The problem is, 30 to 38% of Americans don’t pay income taxes, yet they’re still going to get a tax cut, how’s that? Well, Obama says they all pay payroll taxes, Social Security taxes, yes, but theoretically those Social Security taxes are for their retirement, theoretically. Obama’s going to give them a credit of $500 to a thousand dollars, which means he’s going to be robbing the Social Security fund of $500 to a thousand dollars for all these Americans. He’s just going to hand the check to them. It’s welfare. So if anybody’s going to put a dent in the Social Security fund, for whatever it’s worth, it’s Obama’s plan. Obama even has an ad on Medicare up now.

ANNOUNCER: John McCain’s health care plan. First we learned he’s going to tax health care benefits to pay for part of it. Now the Wall Street Journal reports John McCain would pay for the rest of his health care plan with major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid, $882 billion for Medicare alone, requiring cuts in benefits, eligibility, or both. John McCain, taxing health benefits, cutting Medicare. We can’t afford John McCain.

OBAMA: I’m Barack Obama and I approved this message.

RUSH: We can’t afford John McCain. I wonder where they got that line. The fact is nothing in the ad is true. Nothing in that ad is true, and no less than David Shuster of Obama TV yesterday afternoon said this about this new ad.

SHUSTER: It is certainly late in the game, which makes it all the more puzzling that the Obama campaign is running this particular ad on Medicare and Medicaid called, ‘It gets worse.’ The nonpartisan group FactCheck.org says that ad and a Wall Street Journal article were both bogus and false.

RUSH: Bogus and false. Obama running a bogus and false ad on Medicare, 30-year Democrat playbook, a page right out of it. That tells me that they think they are in trouble. They haven’t reverted to this kind of campaign the entire time until now. It is negative. It is very negative. It’s a personal attack, and it’s a lie. It’s a lie, and it’s unbecoming The Messiah, who is upset with the way McCain is conducting his campaign. Now, going back to Pennsylvania, Fast Eddie out there telling people that McCain’s going to cut their Medicaid and their Medicare. Yesterday it was Gloria Borger who warned us that Fast Eddie was desperate for Obama to get back into Pennsylvania ’cause they’re hurting there. Last night on CNN, David ‘Rodham’ Gergen and Joe Klein warning about Pennsylvania.

GERGEN: This is not over. I’m here in Pennsylvania. I can tell you that folks here have been telling me here in Philadelphia, the Democrats, that while Barack Obama has a 10- or 11-point lead in the polls, there is a widespread feeling that it’s much closer than that and it’s going to be very close on Election Day and Governor Rendell very much wants Barack Obama to come back here to campaign. So this is not over.

COOPER: Joe, if the polls are so far apart, how then are people saying on the ground that it’s going to be closer?

KLEIN: There are reports that even Obama’s private polls had Pennsylvania closer than the public polls. I don’t know how that works, but I do know, I think that David is absolutely right.

RUSH: Now, all of this is academic if McCain doesn’t win Ohio. He’s got to win Ohio. Pennsylvania does not substitute for Ohio. It comes close, but you gotta win Ohio, too, and the latest internals show him still up there by a couple points, although there’s a Quinnipiac poll and another poll showing him down 12 or 13 in Ohio. So the polls continue to just bounce all over the place.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Here’s the proof on the Obama Medicare ad that’s a flat-out lie. It’s from FactCheck.org.

‘In a TV ad and in speeches, Obama is making bogus claims that McCain plans to cut $880 billion from Medicare spending and to reduce benefits. A TV spot says McCain’s plan requires ‘cuts in benefits, eligibility or both.’ Obama said in a speech that McCain plans ‘cuts’ that would force seniors to ‘pay more for your drugs, receive fewer services, and get lower quality care.’ A second Obama ad claims that McCain’s plan would bring about a 22 percent cut in benefits, ‘higher premiums and co-pays,’ and more expensive prescription drugs.’ FactCheck.org says, ‘These claims are false, and based on a single newspaper report that says no such thing. McCain’s policy director states unequivocally that no benefit cuts are envisioned. McCain does propose substantial savings,’ blah, blah, blah.

Anyway the damage has been done because it’s all out there. The ad has been seen. Barry has all this money. He’s spending it left and right. And the ad’s been seen. You know, in the last couple of presidential elections — and this has been something that’s been heartening to me — it hasn’t worked on the elderly. Playing the Social Security card, ‘They’re going to cut your Social Security!’ hasn’t worked. You might say, ‘Well, how come, Rush?’ It’s very simple. For 20 years or more the Democrats every four years have been promising seniors that their Social Security is going to be cut and it never has been. In fact, I just saw a story the other day the average Social Security check’s going to go up 63 bucks next year. Big whoop! You know, stop and think of that. You know, the Social Security budget is one of the largest budget items in the country.

If so many people are on it, with the hundreds of billions on Social Security, every recipient is going to get 63 additional dollars a month. Before Obama’s tax increases. $63 a month. I don’t know anybody who would be ecstatic over that.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Your phone calls are coming up in an el jiffo, but first, one more thing about these Obama ads on Medicare and Social Security. We have to be confident in our own assessment of things because we’re not going to get reinforcement on this from the Drive-Bys, but Obama has been hit hard on this socialism business. He has been hit hard by Joe the Plumber. He has been hit hard with Biden trying to turn this campaign back to foreign policy and national security. When Obama is in a prevent defense and not doing anything — he convened a meeting of his so-called foreign policy advisors yesterday, ostensibly, and then walked out in Virginia to look presidential, trying to cover it up. That’s what these Medicare and Social Security ads are.

They are just raising the dust. They are just raising the dust to try to obscure that Obama is being creamed here with the socialism charge and his own words to Joe the Plumber and the rhetorical flourishes as Obama says of Joe Biden.